Confusion on 911 Dispatch System

There is some confusion between the city of Pasco and Franklin County Sheriff's office whether an agreement has been reached on making the 911 dispatch system capable of communicating with a 800 megahertz system.

Kennewick, Richland and Benton County all use an 800 megahertz dispatch system.

Pasco and Franklin County has been operating under a VHF system.

This has been an issue since a Kennewick police officer was almost shot during a standoff in Pasco last month because officers from the two counties could not communicate.

Yesterday the Franklin County sheriff's office told You Local ABC the city of Pasco agreed to pay $5,000 to make the Franklin County dispatch center capable of communicating with the 800 megahertz system.

Acting City Manager Stan Strebel said this is not that case.

He said the city did not know about any type of agreement like this nor did they agree to pay $5,000.

"Pasco has not made that agreement, Pasco does not know where that $5,000 number comes from, nobody knows anything about this and we haven't been contacted by the sheriff regarding this so I think your questions need to be directed to the sheriff, where did he come up with the idea that pasco made this agreement and where did he come up with 5,000," said Strebel.

Sheriff Richard Lathim said the county Information Services Director was contacted by the city of Pasco.

City officials were asking if they could buy the parts to make the system compatible to 800 megahertz.

The Information Service Director then asked Lathim if this was possible and he said yes.

The next question was where is the money coming from, and Lathim was told by the information services director the city agreed to cover the $5,000 cost.